


re: conciliation

by ljke



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, NOT USUK, Post Revolution, a rewatch, countries are people too, some things need to be resolved and it's really ignored by the fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 20:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18535318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljke/pseuds/ljke
Summary: A chat 200 years overdue between a father and his son.





	re: conciliation

    “Arthur,” he said, stepping to the man's side and resting his forearms against the fence. He did not look at his former suzerain. Instead he cast his eyes up to the heavens, and the heavens gazed upon him in turn.

    What he saw was the most vast of expanses– the stars twinkling modestly in a distance further than he could ever comprehend, ever reach despite all his years of life. The deep ocean those pearls were held in seemed to beg for his very breath, as though the carbon dioxide in his lungs alone would keep their secrets locked away forevermore. The universe, however, only saw two of their bluest stars sparing it a glance.

    If he lowered his head some, refreshed the scene in front of him, more his height, he could see the place that made him think so much of the past. The moon cast no shadow on the eternal valley before him, and he swore the very air tasted like the 1600s. A small cottage rested in the distance, much like the one not a half mile behind the two men against the old wood fence. He felt that if he exhaled too recklessly, his breath would make the grass whisper; its gossip traveling in waves for the acres before his eyes.

    He could practically feel the softness between his toes, on the bottom of his feet; and he almost pressed toe to heel and rid himself of his shoes to prance forth like the toddler he had not been for almost 200 years yet. He resisted, of course, in the presence of the other man, but his heart warmed nonetheless at the familiar sight. Alfred imagined it in daylight– a memory worn at the edges, a reminder in the form of a painful vignette.

    “America,” came the quiet response, as though the other knew how chatty the grass could be.

    Ah, how unfair… he didn't sound ready. _America_ , his mind played once more. He almost loathed it. _You might as well just say “The United States of America.”_

     Of course, he didn't expect to be greeted with fanfare, and he didn't think Arthur had it in him to even look at his former ward. That would be great, naturally, as it would help what they were here to do, but Alfred wasn't wishing on a star, no matter how many of them were shining tonight.  


 

 

_SUBJ: Conciliation._

_TO: Kirkland, Arthur James (UK)_

_FROM: Jones, Alfred Felix (USA)_

 

_To the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,_

_I request your private company at your earliest convenience. Despite the tone of this email, this will not be a meeting between The United States and Great Britain. It will be a meeting between two men. A father and his child estranged._

_It's… time we talked, dude._

_Email's a thing now._

_I'm at an embassy for some business, but… I'll clear my schedule if you're up to this._

_Hope to hear from you in good health._

  


 

    A few details about this email:

  * The embassy was in France, and that conniving, _honhon_ ing bastard had somehow duped him and guilt-tripped him into this. Alfred didn't regret it once he realised he couldn't back out, but he wouldn't dare take credit for the orchestration of this if it somehow all went wrong (as plans made by France nowadays tend to go).


  * He and the nation beside him _had_ talked. How could they not, when the world around them was ever-shifting. Things needed organizing, people needed saving, the world needed their superpowers. However, the constant change left them no time to be Arthur and Alfred. _England_ and _America_ had met, spoken, done business, fought together, but the father and his son had not cast so much as a glance at one another. They both saved their breath, lest they spare a fraction to form a word that made the other punch the rest out of their lungs.



    Almost 200 years, and they hadn't resolved this. Funny how the years catch up to you, but it was hardly anything in Britain's life, he assumed. It was an enormous moment for Alfred, however, and he needed so desperately to address it. He had tried not to _sound_ desperate in the email, hence his initial formal approach, but he couldn't help it, soon slipping into something childish and pleading. He berated himself (and knew Arthur would, too) for adding the casual, homoplatonic “dude”. If he could take anything in that email back, it would be that.

    “When I said I wanted to hear from you, I meant Arthur. Not England.” Alfred cast a glance at his father out of the corner of his eye, noting the other looked tired and those irises, the color of the grass they laid upon, looked dull. Distant. Alfred didn't have to ponder to know what the other was thinking about. “Thought that was pretty clear in my email.”

    The only response he had gotten in return was _“Yorkshire”,_ stripped of all to-and-from formalities, and that was all the young country needed. He dropped all his business affairs for the next two days (one for this moment, and an extra for emotional recovery), with promises from France to take care of everything, and had run straight here, to the quaint countryside that he had once read was “unjustly neglected” by tourists.

    He would have it no other way, really, considering the fact that these endless hills and quaint towns reminded him of his own wild, rural Virginia once upon a time.

    It dawned upon Alfred that such a reason may just be why they're here.

    There was no real significance to the time; it was “just like an American” (as others said) to be “fashionably late” (as he himself put it). He'd gone to the house some ways behind them on first instinct, and had waited there for some time before deciding to at least venture and look for his father before ditching this disastrous rendezvous entirely.

    “Do not patronize me, child,” came that London accent he missed so very much. It clung to his heart and pulled on each ventricle like they were monkey bars. “I can read.”

    “Then you've just never been good at benevolently following requests?”

    He was faced with a glare as the life in those eyes came running back to the surface with a vengeance. Indeed, this would be a disaster if he didn't get his act together.

   “S-sorry, I just–” Alfred began, but he did not continue within the same breath. He just… what? He was bitter? Smug? The winner of a battle that would be known by everyone for the rest of forever? The sole victor between David and the Goliath?

    “It is…” started Arthur, his bristles visibly calming at a surprisingly early time. “... Of no issue. I suppose you are…”

     _Correct._

Arthur looked back down at the valley below, then to the horizon’s waves made of luscious, fertile green. Alfred saw his brows worry just slightly, adding to the wrinkles on his forehead. In some lightings he looked like a youthful conqueror, the once “pitiful island nation” gone bad, the “black sheep of Europe” all too proud of such a title, the sole conqueror of three-fourths of the planet. But it wasn't who Alfred saw now.

    He saw his father, a man older than time. The man who had seen the beginning; knew men called “Burgundy” and “Normandy” but could hardly regale him with tales of them due to countless hundreds of years pushing out memories he held dear. He saw an Empire fallen; an ex-superpower who was forced to hand the baton to his son and his enemy. He saw death; or a fate worse than it. He saw pain; countless losses, wounds, and emotional traumas that even time could not mend.

    “What is it that you would like from me, Alfred,” he said, “I'm afraid I can give you nothing of value except coin.”

    “Your time.”

    That blaze started up again, and this time Arthur's entire face was lit with fury and malice and… hurt. 200 years worth of hurt. “I have already given you enough! You threw it away and bit the hand that damn well fed you!”

    It was Alfred's turn to feel that anger unravel in his chest. “You pushed me to the edge of the cliff and shook me! I had no choice but to jump off!”

    “I offered you my hand time and time again and you spat on it!”

     “When I dangled from the edge, begging for just some room to stand, you stepped on my fingers and told me to grab on!”

     Something in that seemed to click in Arthur's mind. The grass was whispering now. A gale ruffled two fields of wheat atop their heads, one bleached from recent days of work in the sun. They faced one another now, chests heaving and throats burning just like they had on the battlefield when Death's allure beckoned them both. Alfred found his grip on the fence splintering it, and he only pried his hand off after it began to groan in pain. Arthur's hands were balled up at his sides, a tell of his Alfred knew (all too well) meant he was insurmountably furious. It reminded Alfred of a petulant child.

  


 

     _“Iggy! Iggy!” He squealed, his tiny hands grabbing for the taller man's coattails. When he finally got a grip on the soft fabric (Iggy only wore the newest fabrics, he knew, even if he did get them five years out of style from Papa's old chests), he tugged with all his infant might._

_He was spared a brief look of irritation from his father, who would rather busy himself with the soup on the stove than the nuisance at his ankle._

_“I've told you, son,” he murmured in a tone that did not match the expression he threw at the child seconds before, “once you can pronounce 'England’ or 'Arthur’ properly– Christ sake, even ‘Britain’ would do, lad– I'll be at your beck and call. You really must learn to speak properly, or none of the other nations will take you seriously.”_

_Alfred was not happy to hear this. He yanked harder on Arthur's coattails, rocking his entire body weight from side to side to make the man bend to his will. “Egla! Eggy! Iggy! Iggy! Iggy! Bitin! Ata!”_

_Now Arthur was beginning to struggle to keep balance just as much as_ patience _. He gripped the counter's edges to steady himself, and the child saw him wince and then nearly pop a vein when a muffled yell nearly chock-full of sleep was heard from upstairs._

_“Mon dieu, play with him already!”_

_Arthur grit his teeth, hollering back, “Shut up, frog! I'm trying to discipline him!”_

_After a few more seconds of heated staring from father and more unbearable screeching from son, the former softened considerably and cast a concerned glance at the stew on the stove. There was blatant question in his eye, but he ultimately blew it off and sighed._

_The child realized he had won._

_Alfred giggled loudly in the face of his victory, eyes alight. He released the fabric in his hands to toss them up at his father, grabbing the air eagerly._

_Arthur cast him a weary, affectionate smile as he picked up the child, rested him on his hip, and crossed the room to take his son to play in the grassy fields surrounding their countryside home._

_“Don't be cross when I've no choice but to feed you ash on a spoon.”_

  


 

England was sneering at him. “So what would you have me do? Apologize? Bring your child to work day? Pack your lunch, you fool?”

    This wasn't going to work if they were both hostile. The bitterness and resentment wasn't going to lessen when they were just surrounding themselves with it. Alfred decided he would be the bigger man, the responsible adult the one across him had raised him to be. Sure, of course he wanted to scream and curse and spit on England for what he'd done, but that anger was old and he could vent about it at a less sensitive hour. It was a numbness; an old argument that you get more angry about the reasons for than the events during. Though it didn't seem like this argument was old to Arthur, however much England had gotten over it.

    Alfred's shoulders slumped, and he couldn't muster anything to say but the naked truth. Even thinking the words made his voice thick and his eyes water before the words escaped him.

     “I just want my dad back.”

     It exhausted him even more to see his father get even angrier for a moment, though he could have sworn he saw those set shoulders tense with shock. How dare France send him into this, knowing how the elder nation could be.

    “We can't all have what we want, can we? You foolish imbecile, you think the world is at your feet, do you? Because you've kicked old dad's arse and he was at the top of the food chain?!” England's screeching was making him red in the face, Alfred noted flatly in his head. “I don't know about you, git, but I know we've got a world to run! We've more than some petty, two-hundred year old father-son drama! We've no time to go out for ice cream or play in the damned fields!”

    Alfred didn't calculate that he wouldn't have the emotional stamina to deal with his father, and frankly, he didn't think he had to. But to say the least, 1974 wasn't going well. It was already late June, and some scandal or another was beginning with his President, the Cold War wasn't getting any warmer, and he felt an increasing sense of dread with every passing day–

    So there it was. The sky; those beautiful stars sucking the breath out of him in soft hiccups. That had to be it. He didn't mind offering them water, too; little by little from his eyes. Alfred didn't realize he was crying until he paused in stressing over his woes. When was the last time he cried? The 13th day of the Crisis, years ago? He didn't have time to cry these days. He didn't have time to be Alfred unless he was with his Papa... who he didn't have time for.

"And now you're weeping like a victim? Like I've done you in something terrible, you fucking bellend!”

    Alfred took his gloves off and waited for it to stop. It was okay. Arthur sometimes got out of hand and took a long time to calm down. Alfred was surprised that he didn't explode in the face of his snide comment earlier.

He truly felt small as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. He hardly cared to move his glasses enough, and they fell into the grass without sound. That was okay. He didn't want to see his father right now, anyway. His eyes gazed hard through tears to find them, in case he accidentally stepped on them or before England did so on purpose. He thought he saw them, but made no move to pick them up.

    This did not sit well with England. “Well, pick them up! Look at me properly when I'm talking to you!”

    Alfred hiccuped some, wiping his eyes harder as though it would erase him from his current situation. “I don't want you to kick me,” he choked out, a shudder passing through him. As a child, make no mistake, Arthur had never laid hand on him or treated him poorly. He always dealt with his anger away from his children. But that wasn't why his son didn't bend down in this moment. This moment was after the Revolution, after he became a grown man, a superpower who could take a swift kick to the jaw.

    That stopped England in his tracks. The grass whispered louder, the air tense. Some of the lights in the village in the distance came on, and the faintest angry shouts could be heard as they traveled back on the grass like a game of telephone. Alfred spared a hand to wipe his hair out of his eyes and caught a glimpse of England. The man was simply standing there, fists no longer clenched. A blind eye stared at father, and father stared at son.

    Alfred watched him as he slowly crouched to prod the area around his feet in search for his glasses. England watched his fingers comb the grass.

    Eventually, Alfred gave up in his blind search. He removed his other hand from his face and made haste to poke around faster, before the blow was dealt, but it never came. Moments upon moments went by, and Alfred sat on his knees with his fists balling grass. “I'm sorry,” he sobbed to the ground, watering the plants below. “I don't know... w-what else to say…! I was wrong. I just did it f-for them.”

    “Who?”

    “My people. I couldn't just… s-sit by and– and watch them b-be so miserable. I needed to help them!”

     All was hushed as his father knelt across from him. When Alfred felt a hand in his hair, he had to force his muscles not to spasm reflexively. The hand stiffened with caution, and he knew he must have flinched. But he trusted it, just for a moment, and it took the opportunity to rake through his hair and guide him closer. Within a second Alfred was burying his face into the shoulder of Arthur Kirkland, who smelled like burning firewood and soot and old bakeries and ash on a spoon for dinner.

     “With a reason like that, lad,” he said, “maybe _I_ was wrong.” The irony of this didn't even tug a laugh from Alfred, who continued to cry softly as he wrapped his arms around his former guardian, holding tight. _“Maybe you should have thought that way before 1776,”_  he wanted to say, but he could not and would not.

  
  


 

     _The rain was pelting down, and he'd have hardly heard the yells of his own men– both of patriotic rage and of painful regret– if the sounds hadn't made a home in his ears over the last ten some years._

 _He ran and ran until the fire in his lungs threatened to burn them into nothing, and that's when his boots skidded through mud and blood and shit and dirt and grime to ease him to a stop. He didn't stop moving, however. He couldn't afford to. America swung around and shot expertly into the fray, seeing red. His ears were used to the popping of gunshots by now, but he wished he had something to shield his eyes from the rain._ No matter, _he thought, received pronunciation thick in his mind,_ it'll be over soon.

     _America almost laughed when he realized he was looking for eyebrows thicker than welcome mats in the crowd; and he would have, had he been able to breathe properly. The adrenaline in his veins shook his limbs and made his shot waver. In fear of shooting his own men and causing himself yet another casualty among the thousands scratched into his skin and his attire, he ran for a distant building that was not yet burnt down._

_His bloodied hand slipped on the wet knob of the door a few times (and he would have been lying if he said his life didn't flash before his eyes as many times as it had lost grip), but when he finally got a hold of it, it was locked. He used all his force to ram into it and force it open. He didn't have time to run to another building through the open. He ran inside and almost tripped over himself trying to barricade the door he'd damaged._

_When he turned around, he was met with the sight of a wheezing man in the corner that he recognized as one of his youngest minutemen. Last week, he'd pondered with this boy that appeared his same age about the very definition of freedom. He quickly ran to the boy's side, resigned already to the fact that he was not going to make it with the way the battle raged on outside. America offered him a gentle smile and a brotherly clap on the shoulder, whispering distantly, “I'll be sure to tell your mother that her son freed The United States of America.”_

_The spark of childish joy that reached the boy's eyes barely made it to his mouth before fading, and America tuned into the gunshots and cannonfire around him once more, though distant. This battle was killing him, too. He could not move without sharp pain in his spine, his stomach, or his head. The less he moved, the more it hurt, so he stood. He wiped his hand off on his uniform before running it through the dark hair of the boy affectionately, and then he turned to leave again._

_He removed his wet hair from his face and unblocked the door, only to hear his name being yelled from both in front of and behind the shed. The hair on the back of America's neck prickled, and he gripped his musket like a prayer before lifting it to his eye and sticking it out the door._

_His target was another young man, but he had his hands up and his eyes served fear on saucers. It took everything America had not to reflexively pull the trigger, but he did not lower his gun._

_The boy must have assumed he might not have much time to speak, for he said, “General Jones! They're calling a ceasefire! The redcoat– Kirkland– Arthur Kirkland is calling ceasefire and wants to see you!”_

_His heart dropped, and call a ceasefire Arthur Kirkland did. Although America couldn't have been in that building for more than a minute or two (he thought, he was sure, he had to have been), he walked back out to men firing their last shot and lowering their guns as they saw him. Men pausing mid-load of their cannon, holding the heavy ammo with the expressions of lost children._

_America simply walked, and the sea of red and blue parted for him. Soon enough he caught sight of his senior, standing with his hands gripping his gun, the bayonet piercing the earth as though it were America's own chest. It left a disgusting taste in his mouth. He hadn't seen England for a number of years, and he wasn't keen to see him now. Though often he peered into the crowds, just to see. Just to find him. Just to know where he was. How well he was faring; if he was feeling America's wrath._

_In the distance, atop a hill on the horizon, the war raged on. There could never be true peace, it seemed, not until he rid his land of the plague-ridden fleas that were the redcoats. For now, they were all in a bubble, and he felt taller as his men lined up against his back. Once more he brushed his hair out of his face, and rose his gun as England did. A dull throb rolled behind his eyes, like a mother tapping a window to tell the children in the yard to come in for dinner. America needed sleep, desperately. But he did not take his eyes off England._

_England was speaking to him, but America was so focused on breathing that he didn't care what was being said until the elder nation came lunging at him, that fury in his eyes like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was almost too late when he raised his gun and deflected the blow, disarming the other man before anyone could take a shot at either of the two and start the chaos up again._

_“Why?” cried England, the Almighty Great Britain, “Damnit, why?! It's not fair…!”_

_The island nation was on his knees before America, and the latter looked down on him with disgust and contempt. Or at least, that's what he thought he was putting out until an older militiaman clapped him on the shoulder, bayonet pointed at England's skull, and gave him a sympathetic look. America said nothing._

_“Take him to the nearest jail,” rumbled the voice of the man beside him. “Heavily guard it, gag him if you have to.”_

No _, yelled Alfred's mind,_ don't treat him poorly _. He cast a pleading glance at his second in command, and the other seemed to get the message._

_“Nay, then… Treat him well. We'll show him the United States has courtesy different than the likes of Britain.”_

_America gave him a nod, zoning out as England was picked up by each arm and promptly tied at the wrist with a bloody bandana someone pulled off their wound. They walked his father away, and America was left behind, tears of relief washing his cheeks clean. This was a surrender._

_The child realized he had won._

  
  


    “Our people first. ‘Like father, like son,’ as the frog would say it,” murmured Arthur, who rubbed steady his son's back. Alfred heard a light laugh escape him next, and it eased his hiccups some. “He always did say that I… didn't know how to stop in time.”

    Alfred spared a smile. “I'll say.” He yelped as he felt a pinch on his back, and grumbled slightly when he was chastised with a curt “Alfred Felix”. His smile only grew when he quipped, “Arthur James” in return, which earned him a righteous jab to the ribs. It made him laugh, though, so all was okay as he rolled back into the grass and his father chased him with his hands.

    He wiped the remainder of his sad tears from his cheeks as happy ones pricked at the corners of his eyes, his knees coming to greet his chest as he curled into fetal position for protection. This was the kind of protection he missed; not armor or secret services or helmets or bulletproof vests. Himself from the outrageously accurate tickles of his father.

    “Where did you even learn that? Did that old nark frog tell you?”

    The grasses began to whisper again, and that's when Alfred finally rolled away in a fit of giggles and heard a very unpleasant _crack_ under his right shoulder. He looked at Arthur, who was peering at him with pursed lips and raised brows. “Apologies,” he said simply, and Alfred shrugged. It only caused the glass to shift beneath him, making him grimace. Before he accidentally stabbed himself with it somehow, he sat up and brushed any debris off of his clothing.

    “I can get a new pair later. Heard France had some stylish ones just come on the mar–”

     “And I'm sorry.”

     Alfred only watched him, not even daring to breathe, lest he shatter the other’s courage. He knew it took a lot for England, for Arthur, to step down from his ego. From his pride. It took him a long time to get over his most minor irritations. It was humbling for them both to hear the word genuinely escape the island country's lips.

    “I… can't tell you all right now. But I realize… that it was not all you. You are not defective, Alfred. And I…”

    “You weren't a bad parent, Iggy.”

    He saw the other visibly soften, his lungs pushing out what would have been a sob if Arthur had ever cried. “Thank you, lad,” he choked out, and Alfred got teary once more. The younger country felt like he was only a toddler again, crying at everything that he found moved him. “Thank you.”

      He reached out and let his father rest on his shoulder now, and when he glanced up at the stars, he let a sigh of relief part his lips. It wasn't easy, and he was certain this didn't resolve everything, but they were on their way. He would have both fathers and his brother soon enough, in time. Maybe he could even befriend his step-brother, Sealand. It was another battle, but Alfred wasn't scared.

     When Alfred closed his eyes and hugged Arthur tighter, feeling like he was only just discovered and had a long day of frolicking with the rabbits in the whispering grass of Virginia,  he realized.

      He was going to win.


End file.
